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  • The Trading Game

  • A Confession
  • By: Gary Stevenson
  • Narrated by: Gary Stevenson
  • Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (30 ratings)

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The Trading Game

By: Gary Stevenson
Narrated by: Gary Stevenson
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Publisher's Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

'If you were gonna rob a bank, and you saw the vault door there, left open, what would you do? Would you wait around?'

Ever since he was a kid, kicking broken footballs on the streets of East London in the shadow of Canary Wharf's skyscrapers, Gary wanted something better. Something a whole lot bigger.

Then he won a competition run by a bank: 'The Trading Game'. The prize: a golden ticket to a new life, as the youngest trader in the whole city. A place where you could make more money than you'd ever imagined. Where your colleagues are dysfunctional maths geniuses, overfed public schoolboys and borderline psychopaths, yet they start to feel like family. Where soon you're the bank's most profitable trader, dealing in nearly a trillion dollars. A day. Where you dream of numbers in your sleep - and then stop sleeping at all.

But what happens when winning starts to feel like losing? When the easiest way to make money is to bet on millions becoming poorer and poorer - and, as the economy starts slipping off a precipice, your own sanity starts slipping with it? You want to stop, but you can't. Because nobody ever leaves.

Would you stick, or quit? Even if it meant risking everything?

This is an outrageous, unvarnished, white-knuckle journey to the dark heart of an intoxicating world - from someone who survived the game and then blew it all wide open.

©2024 Gary Stevenson (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critic Reviews

Compelling, intensely readable, unsettling. An unforgettable story of greed, financial madness and moral decay. (Rory Stewart)
An incredibly important and timely book, very much of its era. The Wolf of Wall Street with a moral compass, it lays bare the spiritual vacuity of the systems and processes that both dominate and reduce our humanity. (Irvine Welsh)
Astonishing, enraging, extremely funny and exquisitely sad - a magnificent exposé of the 'masters of the universe' whose greed imperils us all. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. (The Secret Barrister)
The Trading Game is the best finance memoir I’ve ever read. Gary Stevenson's tale of plundering Wall Street like some kind of cockney pirate is by turn hilarious and harrowing. A thrilling read that raises profound questions about who runs the global financial system. (Zeke Faux, author of Number Go Up)

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Just fantastic!

Really good story! my new book to tell people to listen to. didn't think it would be so well told. well done Gary!

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Outstanding!!

Amazing story, amazingly read and some brilliant life lessons and insights.

Wish I had this book 3 years ago!!

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One of the most engrossing books I’ve ever read

Gary is a proper genius
Not only mathematically or financially of course
He is also a master of story telling , of creative writing and arrangement.
His memory of his life (I’m assuming parts were made up since no one can possibly remember this much detail about every day of their lives) is incredible.
A thoroughly fun and funny experience.
Oh and did I mention he does all the accents too? The guy is beyond talented.

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epic!

we should all start to bet the economy is gonna collapse & we might come out of it alright.

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Gazza

Gary’s a legend,


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Bold

Gazza what an experience! would like know where there story ends up! maybe another book

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Insights into investment banking trading floors

Interesting story in about how someone good with maths somewhat lucked into becoming an investment bank trader.

The author comes off a bit narcissistic and from the outside appears to make a lot of money off that one idea, that interest rates would stay lower for longer after the GFC (he was right but who knows maybe not for his stated reason). Seems like when he knew that trade was coming to an end he looked for a way to cash out while he could. Kind of reinforces that trading is just gambling and they are way over compensated.

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